Lost Thoughts
Lost SPOILERS galore.
I thought the latest Lost episode, "The Life And Death Of Jeremy Bentham," was one of the best of the season. Locke has always been my favorite character, and this was all Locke all the time. (Still, that doesn't mean every Locke-centric episode works--he's often best driving the story without being at the center). I did fear that since we would have almost no "present" time story, this episode would be frustrating, not moving the main story along. But it had plenty of drama and a fair amount of action as it filled in the backstory. (Some complain we already know what happened, but even though we know Locke contacted the Oceanic 6, we don't know how he did it.)
Lately, I've watched a few reruns of Lost from the first season and I was reminded of why I liked Locke in the first place--he was a seeker, sure, but also a badass who knew how to get things done. Since season 2 I've often wondered if the show isn't losing track of that Locke, since he's always being played, and sometimes comes across as pathetic. It's his character--even his father conned him, and it looks like Ben and Widmore want to use him, too. But every now and then, you want to see the guy in charge, rather than a lost soul, sad and confused. We got to see a bit of that guy in this episode--mostly on the Hyrda island with Lost newbies--and otherwise, at least he was the old seeker. Terry O'Quinn did a great job with both the power and the pain. Perhaps it's time for another Emmy.
The show didn't waste any time showing Locke reborn--it was pre-credits. But is this the same Locke? He arrived on the Island like Christian Shephard, who seems ghostlike (couldn't even help Locke up), so is Locke the same? But we did see Locke eat a mango. Is this a new Locke? (Same with Starbuck on BSG.) Guess we'll find out. I think he might be in trouble soon, since Walt seemed to foresee the people on the island going against him. (Does Ben have anything to do with that?)
Anyway, even as questions were being answered, motivations were very unclear. Both Widmore and Ben worked with Locke, but were they both manipulating him for their own purposes or for the good of the island? (This question is true for all the Losties--Desmond thinks they're just pawns in a game, and he may be right, though I'd have to think even then they'll rise above that station, or what's the point of the show? By the way, I was disappointed last week when Desmond gave Eloise Daniel's message. It should have been important, since Daniel made a big deal about it, and it sent Desmond on a quest, but Eloise acted like she already knew what she had to do.)
Widmore. What is he doing? For most of the show, he's been the bad guy. Now he saves Locke and gives him useful information. Is it possible he's on the side of good? Is he doing what's best for Locke? It's hard to believe he's not just another manipulator. We know too much about his past to think much of him. He was the ruthless soldier for the Others back in the 1950s who'd as soon cut off Juliet's hand as look at her. Did the appearance (and disappearance) of Locke change him? We know Alpert was following Locke from birth, but now it looks like Widmore has been following him a fairly long time as well. Did Alpert and Widmore discuss Locke, or are they working independently. And we know he's at odds with Ben, but what did happen to get him off the island?
What makes it hardest to accept Widmore as a good guy is his freighter mercenaries. He said they were there to capture Linus, but they had no compunction about killing anyone who got in their way, even Ben's adopted daughter, whom he apparently promised to leave alone. Would they have killed Locke, intentionally or by accident, or were they protecting him?
Widmore says a war is coming. (Jack planned a war in season 2 but nothing came of it.) I don't doubt him, though what sort of war, and what the sides are we don't know. He needs Locke one way or another (dead, perhaps), but we're not sure how. I get the feeling this war is what the show is ultimately about--it's presumably over the Island, but what would that mean? We know the Others will fight fanatically for the Island (is it because they're infected with Rousseau's "disease"), but is just the Island at stake, or a lot more.
(A couple notes: 1. When Widmore showed Locke the dossiers he'd compiled on the Oceanic 6, a photo of Sayid showed him working on a house. A bit later, when Locke showed up, Sayid is working on the same house at the same level of completion. I'm happy Sayid is doing good work, but he should speed up a bit. 2. Widmore says he gave Locke the Jeremy Bentham alias as a joke, the same way Locke's parents had named him. This is a nod to the audience, but I think it's a bit too self-conscious, considering half the characters on this show are named after philosophers, authors and scientists--best to leave it alone.)
Then there's Benjamin Linus. He's a liar, a master manipulator, and a cold-blooded killer, but his motivations are even less clear than Widmore's. In the show's shocker, Ben chokes Locke to death. This sure seems to make him a bad guy, after a season or so of suggesting he might be in the right. Can his reputation be salvaged? Probably not, but there is a possibility Ben was doing (or believed he was doing) what the Island wanted, and what Locke needed. I doubt it--it now seems that he's a psycho who does what he has to do to stay in charge (the whole Locke bringing back the Oceanic 6 could have been part of Ben's master plan to get back to the Island while defeating Widmore)--but it's still possible. Now that Ben's killed Locke twice I wonder how he's going to talk his way out of this one. (From the way he said goodbye to Locke, I don't think he figured he'd see him alive again.)
The main question is why Ben killed Locke, after talking him out of suicide. I see four likely possibilities. 1) Ben knows Locke can't get back to the Island if he kills himself, but knows Locke has to die. 2) When he found out Jin was still alive, he knew he could get the Oceanic 6 back to the Island without Locke (or with Locke's corpse, which he needs). 3) When he hears the name Eloise Hawking, he doesn't want Locke to find her, since she's associated with Widmore (through Faraday) and once he makes contact, Locke will shut Ben out of the process. 4) (This is the one I think most likely) Ben lied to Locke when he said he knew Eloise--in fact, this was the information he was looking for, the connection that would get him back to the Island, and once he had that, he didn't need Locke any more, except as a corpse.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:01 AM
8 Comments:
Great summary, LAGuy. "Sayid needs to speed it up a bit" cracked me up. Although maybe he's on his 50th identical house? I spent most of the show thinking they had sunk Ben as the good guy forever, but towards the end I decided that perhaps such a blatant push in that direction actually bode well for him in the end. After all, Locke learned from Alpert that he needed to die to bring the six back, and Ben is therefore helping him towards his destiny. Don't people think that Judas gets a bad rap when he was just helping Jesus get to where he needed to be? (If Jesus and his twelve disciples escaped and spent the next several decades fishing and preaching -- not much of a story).
On an unrelated note, I think Ben came into the room knowing he would kill Locke once he got the information he needed. He needed to talk Locke out of suicide just long enough to talk to him.
You may be right that Ben figured he'd kill Locke, but he did honestly seem surprised when he found out about Jin. (By the way, some had surmised Ben lied to Sun about Jin being alive to get her to the church on time--now we know he didn't.) He perked up even more when Locke mentioned Hawking. It certainly seems possible these revelations--which he wasn't expecting--led to his actions.
You're more observant than me. I didn't realize they were on the Hydra island, even though I rewatched the scene in the room and tried to match it to any of the Dharma places I knew.
Until this episode, I feared that Locke would be raised as a ghost. (Which is what Christian clearly is: cf. his appearance to Michael in the freighter's last few seconds). But eating the mango seems proof he's corporeal. I presume they deliberately chose eating to echo the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection: cf. the references to Doubting Thomas in Heloise's church.
I think that it was revelations # 2 and 4 that changed Ben's mind. The Jin revelation seemed to change his whole viewpoint, and he got the ring from Locke at that point, but didn't kill Locke yet. So the Heloise revelation was also necessary to make up Ben's mind.
It's clear why the Heloise revelation was essential: without her help, Ben can't find the island. The Jin revelation was important because Ben clearly wants the Six to come back. Why? I can think of three possibilities: (1) He knows that the Island and/or Jacob and/or Richard wants them back, and by bringing them back he can get back in their good graces. (2) He knows that the Island won't divert a plane from Guam to the Island unless the Six are on it. (3) Heloise has orders from Widmore to bring the Six to the island; she won't tell Ben how to get there unless they come too.
With regard to the War, there seem to be five powerful factions:
1. Ben, who at one time held the allegiance of many of the Others (but probably doesn't anymore).
2. Widmore. He had already been to the island before buying the diary of the ship's mate of the Black Rock. Abaddon and the Freighter People worked for him. He bankrolled Daniel's research and is behind Heloise.
3. The Dharma Initiative. I think there are some inconsistencies here, but the DI appears to still exist. They are still doing food drops on the island, which means they can still find the island (but bizarrely suggests that the DI central command doesn't know about the purge?). We have not yet seen Alvar Hanso. His grandfather Magnus Hanso, who captained the Black Rock, is the first known person to have visited the island (but presumably not the actual first); Tovard Hanso, another relative, auctioned the diary. The fact that Widmore had to buy the diary at a public auction suggests that his group and the DI are not one and the same.
4. The oldest "Others". Richard is the only one we know of. It seems he is perpetually second-in-command, but has the authority to choose the first-in-command. (This was stated by Lindelof the season four DVD commentary.) Generalizing from Ben and Locke, it appears that one of Richard's criteria for a leader is that he must murder his own father.
5. Jacob himself. Is he human? I wonder if he has four toes on each foot, perhaps.
Locke and the Oceanic folks are not a faction; all of their actions have been either self-preservation or working to further the ends of one or more of the five groups.
Widmore and Ben definitely hate each other, but Ben and Heloise cooperated to get the Six back to the island. Did Heloise then tell Widmore that Ben had gone? For that matter, could Widmore himself have stowed away on the plane?
Ben insisted that the decision to kill the Dharma folks in the Purge was not made by him, but by "the leader" of the Others. He didn't give a name. Assuming that Richard was not that leader, could it have been Widmore? And later, Ben manipulated Widmore into moving the island, and that is when Widmore left?
I knew it was the Hydra since when Locke stood on the shore we saw a huge island in the background. Didn't need much more than that. (It also helped to know that Sawyer and Kate, when imprisoned there, were forced to work on a runway.)
As for the mango, remember also that one of the first things Locke did when he landed on the island the first time was to eat an orange. (Or at least he seemed to have an orange in his mouth.)
I'm not sure of Ben's full reasons for doing what he did, but I'm guessing the main reason is he saw the Oceanic 6 (and Hawking) as his ticket back.
I've been guessing the food drops are automatic in some way, since they've been going on for decades (if time works the same way) after the DI was (presumably) destroyed.
The Losties fit in to the war somehow, we just don't know how yet.
I always assumed the leader of the Others (whether the Temple convinced them or not to follow him) was Jacob, and Ben, whom Friendly and others know is not the leader, was only presumed to be in charge as long as he convinced them (and himself?) that he was relaying messages from Jacob.
Do you think that Ben didn't actually hear commands from Jacob? I had assumed that he truly heard Jacob, for many years -- and even when he and Locke were in the cabin together, Ben saw and heard Jacob for quite a while, while Locke only heard two words and saw a glimpse.
Hurley also glimpsed Jacob's eye pressed against the window.
We've obviously got a lot to learn about Jacob, as well as Ben's struggle for power. Ben was first noticed by Alpert as a child. Perhaps he was groomed to lead. Ben said he used to get visions in dreams, and I expect he did talk to Jacob as well. But at some point it stopped working, or didn't work as well. His power was slipping away, and the Others were ready to switch to Locke. Ben saw Locke as a threat and tried to kill him. The words Locke heard from Jacob were "help me," which suggests Ben was working against him, and Jacob needed Locke to make things right. And Christian Shephard (the ghost) made it clear to Locke that listening to Ben never gets you anywhere.
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